27. Lucy
LUCY
THEN
My mother canceled at seven twelve.
Not six, when I still could have pretended the evening had not rearranged itself around her.
Not five thirty, when I was standing in front of my closet deciding whether dinner with the woman who had left us required a dress, jeans, or running attire.
Seven twelve.
I was already ready.
I had curled my hair loosely because she always used to say she liked it down.
I had put on the pale blue blouse she bought me two birthdays ago, back when gifts still arrived wrapped carefully enough to look like proof.
I had painted my nails with a color Naomi said made me look like I had my life together, which was kind of her to lie about.
Mom: Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Something came up. Rain check?
I stared at the words until they stopped looking like language.
She didn’t even take the time to formulate a good excuse. Not I’m sick. Not emergency. Not can we do tomorrow.
Something. The word sat there, small and slippery and impossible to grab with both hands.
Something had come up when I needed help getting ready for prom.
Something had come up when she said she might come to graduation brunch.
Something always came up, and somehow I was always expected to be reasonable about being left standing there with my hair done and my hope showing.
I typed three different responses.
It’s fine.
Don’t worry about it.
Sure.
I deleted all of them.
Then I set the phone facedown on the dresser and sat on the edge of my bed as if moving too quickly might make the room realize what had happened and become embarrassing.
Downstairs, Dad and Arlo were gone. Dad had some alumni foundation dinner connected to graduation weekend.
Arlo was at a friend’s house, pretending he had plans that did not involve checking on me every forty minutes.
The house was quiet in that summer-night way, windows closed against humidity, air conditioner humming, the walls holding the shape of a family that kept getting smaller no matter how hard we tried to fill it.
My phone rang. I let it ring twice, because answering immediately felt like admitting defeat.
Then I picked up. “Do not be nice to me.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Naomi said. Café noise hummed behind her. “I was calling to ask why you haven’t sent me a picture of the blouse yet.”
I closed my eyes.
“Lucy.”
“She canceled.”
The noise behind her shifted, softer now. Maybe she had stepped into the back room at Paper Lantern, between shelves of overstock paperbacks and boxes of oat milk. “Oh, honey.”
“I said don’t be nice.”
“Fine. Your mother is being an ass.”
A laugh burst out of me, sharp and too close to a sob. I pressed my fingers over my mouth. “She texted,” I said. “She didn’t even call.”
“Because calling would have required hearing your voice.”
I stared at a candid picture one of my classmates had sent over from graduation earlier that day. Dad’s arm around me. Arlo making a face over my shoulder. Ty standing beside me in his gown, grinning at me instead of the camera because he never did understand basic directions when I was nearby.
“He’s at Mase’s,” I said.
“Ty?”
“No, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.”
“Okay, you still have sarcasm. That’s promising.”
I looked down at my blouse, at the careful buttons, the fabric I had chosen for a mother who could not make it across town. “I told him to go.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes.” Naomi’s voice sharpened, practical and immediate. “Because you meant it when you told him. And now your mother ruined your night, so I am going to say something outrageous.”
“I’m afraid.”
“You should go to the party.”
I blinked. “Absolutely not.”
“Compelling argument.”
“I’m not showing up at a hockey party because my mother canceled dinner.”
“No. You’re showing up at a summer party where your boyfriend is, because sitting in your room staring at a text from your mother sounds like a terrible evening plan.”
“I don’t feel like being around people.”
“You don’t have to be around people. Be around Ty.”
“I don’t want to make it a thing,” I said. “I don’t want to make the whole night about my shitty mom.”
“Then don’t. Put on shoes. Drive to Mase’s. Find your boy. Let one person who actually loves you be happy to see you.”
My eyes burned.
Naomi exhaled softly. “Luce.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to punish yourself because she disappointed you.”
I looked at the phone in my hand. At the unanswered text. At the version of myself reflected in the dark window, dressed for someone who had not shown up.
Mase Keller’s lake house was impossible to miss.
Cars lined both sides of the gravel road leading down toward the property.
Music drifted through the open windows, louder as I parked near the edge of the drive beneath a pine tree.
The last of the light was draining from the sky, but the house glowed gold from every window.
Lights hung across the deck. The lake beyond it reflected broken pieces of brightness, trembling with the movement of people on the dock.
For a few seconds, I sat in my car with both hands on the steering wheel.
I should have texted Ty.
I had not because some small, foolish part of me wanted to see his face when he noticed me. Wanted one uncomplicated thing after a night that had made me feel stupid for hoping.
The air outside was thick and warm. Early summer wrapped around my bare arms as I stepped out, carrying the smell of lake water, smoke, beer, cut grass, and someone’s coconut sunscreen.
Laughter burst from the deck, followed by Simon Keller’s voice rising above everyone else.
“Absolutely not! That is a structural failure!”
Someone shouted back at him. More laughter followed.
No one noticed me at first.
That was a relief.
The yard was crowded enough that I could slip along the edge of it, past a group of girls sitting on the deck steps, past two boys arguing over a cooler, past Claire carrying a stack of paper plates with the focused expression of someone preventing civilization from collapsing.
Inside, the sliding door stood open. Music pulsed from the living room, old hardwood floors vibrating faintly beneath too many shoes.
I scanned for Ty.
I found Mase first. He stood near the kitchen island, speaking to someone I did not know, his brows drawn together in that quiet, serious way he had when he was listening for more than words. His gaze swept the room and landed on me.
Surprise flickered across his face.
I forced a small smile.
He lifted one hand, already starting toward me, but someone called his name from the deck.
I shook my head once, tiny enough that maybe he would understand. I was fine. I did not need an announcement. I did not need anyone to make space for me. I only needed Ty.
Mase hesitated. Then his eyes shifted toward the hallway.
I followed the look before I understood why.
Ty stood at the far end of the room near the hall that led to the bedrooms.
For one breath, all I felt was relief.
Blond hair messy from his own hand, shoulders broad beneath a navy T-shirt, face turned downward with that focused gentleness he wore when something had stripped the joking out of him. He was not performing. Not laughing. Not being pulled in twelve directions.
He had one arm around a girl I did not know.
The relief vanished so quickly it left me hollow.
She was pressed close to his side, her dark hair falling forward like a curtain.
His hand rested at her waist, fingers spread against the small of her back as he guided her down the hall.
Her face was turned into his chest. One of her hands clutched the front of his shirt, knuckles pale in the cotton.
Ty bent his head toward her. Close enough that from where I stood, it looked like intimacy. Like privacy. Like a secret already in motion.
My entire body went cold.
People moved around me. Someone brushed my shoulder. Music kept playing. A burst of laughter came from the deck, bright and careless and belonging to another universe.
I could not hear anything except the blood rushing in my ears.
Ty’s hand shifted lower as the girl stumbled. He caught her immediately, firm and practiced, his body curving around hers like he knew exactly how to hold her. She leaned more heavily into him.
He opened the guest room door.
The room beyond was dark.
For half a second, his profile turned into the hallway light. His face was serious. Protective, maybe. Tender, definitely. The kind of tenderness I had thought belonged to me.
Then he stepped inside with her and closed the door.
Something inside me split so cleanly there was no sound at first. No sob. No gasp. Just a bright, white absence where feeling should have been, like my heart had stepped backward out of my body and left me standing there alone.
I thought of my mother’s text.
I thought of Ty in Betsy saying Boston and Fargo like certainty could hold a continent together.
I thought of the way he had kissed my forehead. The way he had promised we would figure it out. The way he had said love like love was a place he could stay.
And then I thought, with a clarity so brutal it almost steadied me, he is already gone.
My breath returned all at once, sharp and painful.
Behind me, Mase said something that sounded like my name.
I did not look at him.
I turned and walked out. Fast would have drawn attention. Fast would have made people ask questions, and if someone asked me one kind thing, I would break open on Mason Keller’s deck in front of half our graduating class.
So I walked carefully.
Through the kitchen.
Past the sliding door.
Down the deck steps.
Across the yard where the grass was damp against my sandals and the lake smelled like every summer I had ever been foolish enough to think might last.
When I reached my car, my hands shook so badly I dropped my keys.
That was when the first sob came. It tore out of me before I could stop it. Ugly. Quiet. Bent over the gravel beside my own car while music kept thumping behind me and the party continued as if nothing had happened.
I picked up the keys on the third try and got inside.
The second the door closed, everything came apart.
I cried with both hands over my mouth because some part of me still believed pain could be contained if I was disciplined enough.
My body folded around it anyway. Shoulders shaking.
Chest burning. Tears hot on my cheeks, ruining the makeup I had put on for my mother and then carried stupidly into a party for a boy who had not even known I was there.
My phone lit up in the cup holder. I stared at his name through tears until the call went dark.
Ty: How was dinner? You okay?
Another call.
I pressed my fist against my sternum like I could hold myself together from the outside.
The phone kept lighting up.
Ty: Luce?
Ty: Call me.
I drove home with the windows down because I could not breathe otherwise.
Warm summer air rushed through the car, tangling my hair, drying tears against my skin only for new ones to fall.
The road blurred and sharpened, blurred and sharpened.
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and made myself stay between the lines.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, my phone had gone quiet.
The porch light was on.
The house looked exactly the same as it had when I left. Safe. Familiar. Waiting.
I sat in the dark car and looked at it until another text from my mother appeared on the screen.
Mom: Hope you’re not upset. We’ll do something soon.